The Surrendered Life — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, PO Box 260, Lindell, Texas, 75771, or calling 903 -963 -8626.

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The Meaning of the Surrendered Life

I speak to you this morning on the surrendered life, the surrendered life. I welcome visitors all over the building and the annex, the overflow and all of the rooms and auditoriums and here in the main auditorium.

God bless you. We trust that you've been moved by the Holy Spirit this morning. Heavenly Father, I need your help. The Holy Ghost abides in us and the Holy Ghost abides in me. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you take control of this temple this morning.

We're the temple of the Holy Ghost. And Lord, the words that we speak have to be anointed or they have no value. I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, to come upon me in a very unique and special way and speak your words, not mine, but yours.

Lord, I am wholly, totally dependent upon you this morning, as are our listeners. And we pray, Lord, that we will not walk away here this morning just shrugging it off, but receive it as from the throne of God.

In Jesus' name, amen. The surrendered life. The word surrender, let's talk about it a minute. It means an act of giving up one's possessions or person into the authority of another. Giving up your person, your body, or your possessions to the authority of another.

To surrender means to relinquish your own power, your own aims, and your own goals. The word surrender means to give back that which was given to you. Give it back. What that means in spiritual terms.

Surrender is the act of giving back to Jesus the life that He granted you. Give it back completely. It's an act of relinquishing all control over things that you say, things that you do. It's a matter of surrendering to the point that you get your direction from Him, from the Holy Spirit.

You have no other goal or aim. A total resignation of your life into the hands of Him to do as He pleases. Total surrender is the giving up of all of your rights and control. The Bible said Jesus came to live that kind of life.

Jesus' Obedience to the Father's Will

He didn't come to live as God, though He was God in the flesh. He came to live as man with the will of man. With the ability to take or leave His life as He chooses. Jesus said, For I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.

He did nothing, He said, on His own. Nothing. He made no move. He said nothing. He did nothing. Except what He heard and saw from His heavenly Father. I do nothing, Jesus said of Myself, but as My Father has taught Me, those are the things I speak.

And He that sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him. He said, I speak the truth, which I have heard from God. I heard it of God, My Father. And He said, and I don't seek My own glory, only My Father's.

This life of full surrender to His heavenly Father was not imposed on Him. It was not imposed on Him at all. Jesus Himself said, therefore does My Father love Me, because I laid down My life, that I might take it again.

No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down to Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father. Jesus is saying very clearly, this act of surrender was within My human willpower.

I had the right. My Father gave Me that privilege, and it's a privilege He's given to all of us. He said, I have the power. I have the power. He's not speaking of God in flesh, He's speaking as the man, Christ Jesus, the human man.

I have been given the right by My Father to lay My life down, or pick it up and do as I please. That's within My power to see how obedient I would become. How I would lean upon Him for direction. That was given to Me.

That power was given to Me. Power was given to Me to go to the cross, or to take Myself from this cup. But He said, I laid My life down. He did it because of love. I have this power. Folks, none of us are forced by God to live a dependent life, a surrendered life to Him.

You can get in to Canaan land and stay on the border and never enjoy the grapes, the honey, the milk. You can get right in to it, but never go to the heart of the fullness of what God intended by bringing you in to His heart.

Jesus said, I have the power. And I believe it's within our power to fully surrender our lives to be directed in everything we say and do. To be totally given over to His will and His purpose while we're here on earth.

He invites us, for example, in the Scripture, to yield our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice. He doesn't impose it. He doesn't force it. I believe you can have as much of Jesus as you want. I believe you can go as deep in Christ as you want to go.

I believe you can be as surrendered as you want to be. I want to talk about that this morning. The Apostle Paul chose to follow Christ's example of a surrendered life. His name was Saul when he was first accosted by the Lord.

Paul as the Pattern of a Surrendered Believer

He's a Christ-hater, self-righteous, persecutor. A man with a self-will and ambition. A man who literally breathes hatred toward the children of the Lord. Yet God takes this one of the most self-dependent, one of the most self-sufficient, self-determined men on earth.

He takes this man and makes him an example of the most God-dependent, God-filled, God-trusting man of all men. He takes him, Paul said, as a pattern. Paul called his life a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

He said, Paul saying, if you want to know what it is to surrender your heart, if you want to know what it takes to live a surrendered life and to come into this kind of life, you look at my life, the pattern.

I'm a pattern for all those who should follow. He's a pattern for us. He said, if you know, if you set your heart to seek the Lord and you want to go deeper, you want to know him like you have never known him, he said, let me tell you what it's going to take.

Let me tell you what will happen in your life if you want to be fully surrendered to Jesus. Paul said, Christ saved me and he showed me mercy and long-suffering, that I may be a pattern. Or you can look at my life and you say you want to serve Jesus with all your heart and you want to be a fully surrendered child of his.

He said, look at my life and see how he works it. First of all, the path, according to this pattern, the path to the Christ surrendered life begins with a God-led season of helplessness. Absolute helplessness.

Helplessness on the Road to Damascus

This is where full surrender to Christ begins. God begins to knock us off our high horses first. Paul is on his self-assured way. He's got his plan in his hand. He's got the endorsement of the dignitaries.

He knows what he wants. He knows where he's going. He's self-assured. He's been taking the Christians to jail and now he's on the road to Damascus, well accepted by the religious order of his day. His life well planned ahead, well educated.

He knew where he was going. He had the commendation of his spiritual leaders. And suddenly a light from heaven and he's on the ground on his face trembling. You see, I believe there's been an inner unrest in Saul for a long time because there was something missing in his life.

There was something kicking inside. According to the scripture. Because with all of his study of the word, because he was a student of the word. He was a Pharisee. He was trained by the best leaders of the day.

He had zeal. He had a hunger for God. But there was something missing to it. And I believe when he went to Damascus, he was a very empty man. And I think it traces back to the moment he stood by while Stephen was being stoned.

And he saw something that shook him to the core. He saw something that exposed his life. Because he came face to face with a fully Christ surrendered man. And exposed the emptiness of his own life. He said, I know the word of God.

I've had more training than he had. I had a hunger for God, a zeal for the things of God. But I saw a man who spoke with authority. I saw a man who knew God like I've never known him. I met a man, I heard a man, and I saw a man.

His words were so convicting. His words were so cutting. It cut me. He has something I don't have. Imagine he's out there to try to imprison the very kind of men and women he has just seen. Being stoned to death and so convicted him.

And there's something kicking inside. It had made him all the more miserable to come face to face with somebody that was otherworldly. So unsold, righteous and holy. It convicted his very life. He's empty, well educated, wanting God.

And suddenly he hears the words, I'm Jesus whom thou persecutest. And I suggest to you that when he was on the ground, he was there for hours. Hey, my education. Now I understand this man, Stephen. I understand what he got, what he has, what he had.

I understand now what it's all about. It all makes sense now. Everything about Isaiah that I've read, everything I've read in the Old Testament. I know it makes sense. It's all about Jesus and I missed it.

Which I thought was right, but I never even knew Jesus. I missed the point. Now it starts making sense. Now I see it was intimacy with this man, Jesus. I am Jesus whom you've been persecuting. And now it dawns on him in the great revelation.

It had burst on Saul's heart. It's Jesus. It's been Jesus all along. I've been on the wrong road. And suddenly the revelation comes to him. Supernatural revelation of who Jesus is. And revealed not only to him, but in him.

He said, Christ has been revealed in me. This was a living revelation. Supernatural. You would think now that he says, Saul rises up and says, Lord, what do you have me to do now? How can I walk with you?

How can I please you? How can I serve you? What shall I do? You'd think that after such a supernatural revelation, all the education he has, God sent him out now with a great testimony. The Lord said, arise and go into the city and shall be told you what you must do.

Now look at Saul, blind. Dumbfounded. Being led into the city by his dumbfounded friends. His friends are speechless. But I'll tell you what, as you see this blind man confused. Wanting only to serve God, only to serve Jesus and give him everything in his heart.

He's being led blind, blinded now. He's being led into the city. I want you to picture that man walking into the city now, educated and everything now has come apart. But I want you to know something.

He's being led also by the Holy Ghost into the surrendered life. He's being led by the Holy Ghost to three days of silence and quiet. Where his heart's yearning and crying out, oh God, all I want, Jesus, I want to know you.

I want to serve you. Nothing else matters now. It's all dung, it's all waste. All my past. Everything I've done in the flesh, it's done, it's done now. What do you want me to do? Days alone fasting and praying, utterly confused.

All his studies of the word, now he can't find anything in those studies to satisfy his heart. He's been taught to others and now not a word comes to him of all he's learned. All of his past and everything he had in the past, it doesn't help him now because he's helpless.

This is the path of the surrendered life. If you're going to really set your heart to walk fully surrendered, Lord, God's going to put a Stephen in your path. He's going to be a face to face with some man or some woman, some young person, some preacher, somebody.

So given to God, been so alone with the Lord, they have a countenance that's different. They speak only about Jesus. They're not interested in the applause of men. They're not interested in your car. They're not interested in hearing about your golf course.

They're not interested in hearing anything about your shopping patterns. Nothing at all. They talk about Jesus. They sign Jesus. They talk Jesus. They look like Jesus in their eyes. And it convicts you to the car because you've been complacent in compromising.

If everything you've sought for, you have not sought for the real issue, you have not seen, you've missed it. Put you face to face with a spiritual man who will expose your spiritual bankruptcy. It happens.

You see, it's all of God's doing. He'll bring you to a place where you don't understand what's happening to you. You come to a place where you are helpless. I've been there. And he keeps taking me back there when I start getting a little self-confident.

He somehow always brings us to this point back to utter, utter helplessness. Where you say, after all the preaching I've heard, after all the teaching I've done, after all the blessing I've blessed others, right now I feel like I don't know anything.

I feel so confused. But you see, it's God's doing. He can't bring you into dependent, surrendered life until he brings you to the end of all self-reliance. Until you have totally no more confidence in your flesh.

That's the beginning. Secondly, this path leads to much suffering. Turn to Acts 9, please, and we'll see it clearly. Acts, the ninth chapter. There was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias.

And he said, behold, I'm here, Lord. The Lord said unto him, arise and go into the street which is called straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. Behold, he prayeth.

And he seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I've heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to the saints of Jerusalem.

And here he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, go thy way, for he's a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

And I will show him how great things he must suffer for my sake. Now, look at this for just a minute. Now, God promises this man, Saul, a very fruitful ministry. But he's got to endure great suffering in the process.

Suffering as Training in Dependence on God

Now, folks, when we talk about suffering, the subject is so broad, it's so wide. I don't even know how to begin to approach it. Because you see, there's spiritual suffering, there's physical suffering, there's mental pain, pains of all kinds.

And it's just impossible to deal with this subject. It's so wide and broad. You think of Saul, how he had a thorn in the flesh, shipwreck, rejection, stonings, beatings, mockery, snakebite, robberies, malicious gossip, persecutions of all kinds.

Now, God's not calling all of us to the multitude of sufferings or the deepness of the sufferings of Paul the Apostle. In some way, in some manner, we are going to suffer. If you're going to live the totally surrendered life, it's going to be accompanied by much suffering.

Let me focus on the reason. I'm not going to try to explain the subject because everyone here listening to me, you have your own kind of suffering. A young lady in the choir, her sister was murdered in Philadelphia last week.

She's here now singing. So Laura's in the hospital and her husband died last night at nine o 'clock. And she wasn't there because she's in the hospital sick. I don't know what your pain is. I don't know what your suffering is.

But there's not a person here that knows Jesus who is not acquainted with suffering. If you tell me you don't know what suffering is, you don't know who Jesus is. Suffering and pain. Some of you came in, burdened down this morning.

The annex and overflow rooms, you're totally burdened down. Nobody knows. You hide it well, it doesn't even show on your face. But you see, suffering is one area of our lives that we have little or no control over.

And that's why it's so important for God to allow this in our lives. Because it's that point, I'll tell you, you want to talk about losing control? You go in a hospital and look at somebody that's being waited on.

They can't bathe themselves. They can do nothing. They're totally at the hands of others. Some of you have been there. You know what that helplessness is all about. But you see, suffering, you come to the end of yourself.

You say, I can't handle this anymore. And this is the school. It's a training place where you learn total dependence on yourself. You learn total dependence on the Lord. You come to a place where you say, I can't handle this.

God says, good, I can handle it. I've been waiting for you to yield. And sometimes God allows severe suffering in our lives to bring us down from our horses of self-dependency. He will bring us to the ground to our faith there.

Though He can lovingly say, turn it over to me. All your cares, all your worries, everything. I want you to live a surrendered life. Surrender even your physical body, your brain, your mind, everything.

Give it to me. Trust me because I care for you. Have you been there? Now, if you're really going to set your heart to be totally surrendered to the Lord, you're going to suffer more than complacent believers ever suffer.

Because you see, the complacent believer, he will suffer. Those that are in compromise, they'll be suffering because the Lord is trying to wean them from some particular sin or from a very complacent lifestyle.

And hey, there'll be a telephone call, there'll be something. You see, they haven't prayed in weeks or months and there'll be a call to get you on your knees. God's not mad at you. He's not going to let the devil have you.

And He's going to allow a slap on the wrist where it just wakes you up and says, hey, where have you been? I'm not trying to scare anybody. I know, I've been there, done that. And I know what it's like.

And the Lord says, come. But you see, if you are not setting your heart, I'm going to go all the way with the Lord. I'm not going to live the normal Christian life that you see today where the Lord has given His one or two hours on Sunday and I just park Jesus on the back roads of my mind.

No, no, no. If He becomes everything in your life, He's going to allow you to go through things that no one else goes through because He wants you to be a comfort and a strength to others. He's doing it.

You see, the complacent Christian, he will have suffering but there are no lessons learned but in his own life. No one's going to learn from it. No one's going to hear about it. They may complain about it, but nobody is learning anything about Jesus.

Nobody's learning about how the Lord works. There's no comfort out of it. But for the individual. But if you have a heart for people, if you want the Lord to love you, if you care for others and you know it's in your heart, you say, I care about people.

You are going to go through a different path and suffering is going to be deeper than others because He wants you to become wholly dependent on God as an example and as a source of comfort to your family and to those around you.

This is important. I'll wait until those in the annex and everywhere have it. Because I want you to read it with me. Please just follow me as I read it. 2 Corinthians 1, starting in verse 3. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

For if the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so are consolation also bounded by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it's for your consolation and salvation which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.

And whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. Look at me, please. Some of you endure greater sufferings, greater pain, because He has a wider reach for you to comfort others around you.

He wants to use you in some special way. And the greatest comfort ministries come out of the greatest sufferings. I've seen it all my lifetime. That the God of all comfort would be known to you and that our affliction or my affliction will prove to be a consolation to others who are suffering.

The Single Ambition to Win Christ

Now thirdly, we're talking about how God brings us into this surrendered life. This path leads to a single ambition that I may win Christ. One ambition. No other agenda, no other ambition in life but to win Christ and to know Him intimately and to possess Him fully.

No other ambition. I asked a godly young pastor this past week on a telephone call. I said, pastor, you've traveled the country and you know ministers, young ministers. What's the number one problem? What's the biggest problem in the ministry today?

And very clearly he said, the need to be successful. He went on and he said, young pastors see churches like your church, Times Square Church, spring up. It seems like overnight and you've got to make a church.

And other pastors have struggled in the city for years and just a handful of people. And he said, young people, young ministers have this pressure upon them to overnight produce something. There's a cry and a hunger for success.

Now we know that's in the secular world but it's also a plague in the church of Jesus Christ today. I get letters from people from all over the United States. And they say, our pastor was displeased with the lack of growth in our congregation.

So he went to a conference to a large church, a mega church and he got, he learned some new techniques on how to build a church. One pastor told me, he said, one expert told me in so many words, you can't grow a church if all you give him is Jesus.

You can't grow a church if all you give him is Jesus. The pastor came home. One woman in particular said he came home and overnight on a Sunday morning get up and said, we're changing the order of this church.

We're going to become the name the kind of church is going to become. Going to be more friendly to sinners. And so they revamped the worship style and everything. No one was to be offended. No sinner to be offended, no one.

The worship was changed, everything, nothing out of order, everything perfect in time by the clock. And she, I heard, I hear it over and over again. We old timers who knew what it was like to be in the meetings where the spirit of God would move, where people would be touched by the Holy Ghost, our kids would be touched and where you could worship and praise the Lord and lift your hands and say, God, it's all gone.

And all of us, as old timers, we don't know where to go. The pastor took it away. It's all gone. There's no spirit. There's no life. You see, there's another agenda. It's not now all Christ. It's not just winning Christ.

By today's standard, Paul was a total failure. He didn't build any buildings. He had no corporation. In fact, the message was so offensive, the preaching of the cross was so offensive, they stole him.

Every time they got a multitude, they tried to kill him. He taught about dying, not buying. He never spoke of bigness, but only brokenness. I have striving young pastors come to me and I remember one in particular said, Brother Dave, you don't realize it.

You pastor make a church and you have got a worldwide ministry and you have had bestsellers and all of that. And another, somebody said, your reputation is set for life. You don't have to do anything.

You've got a reputation. What's wrong with my going after it? What about me? Why can't I go the same path? And, you know, the answer would be, well, you don't know what I've been through. But I'm not going to say that.

You don't know the cost I've paid, I hear people say. No, no, no, that has nothing to do, because I know ministers who know God more than I will ever know Him, have sacrificed more than I've ever sacrificed, suffered more than I've ever suffered, paid a price more than I would ever know.

And they've been faithful and they've been honest and holy and nobody knows their name. So that's not the issue. When I stand before Christ at the Judgment Day, there's only going to be one measure of my success or the success of any other man or woman of God.

He's not going to look at any of my books. He's not going to talk about Times Square Church. He's not going to talk about any of my crusades. He's not going to be judged. How Jesus controlled my life.

How yielded I was to His will and purpose here on earth. That I had no other will but His, no other agenda but His. That I was fully surrendered to His purpose for my life. It's going to be, did I follow the crowd or did I wait on Him for direction?

Did I borrow my messages or did I hear directly from the Father? It's going to be my walk with Him. I can say with an honest heart before you today, my greatest joy on earth is to hear from God. To stand before a congregation like this this morning and know in my heart that words I speak to you, I heard first from Him that worked in my own soul.

And I know the greatest joy in my life is to hear Him say, this is the way, walk in it. That's the joy. You can't be a man or woman of God until that's everything in your life that I hear from God. He speaks to my heart.

My ambition now is to learn more and more how to be nothing in self. And be able to say, my Father's with me because I do only His will. Now finally, the surrendered life, listen closely, because this is very vital and important.

Contentment in God's Present Calling

The surrendered life, if you fully surrendered to Christ, it'll bring contentment in where you are with what you have. It'll bring contentment. You're not going to be nailing a stake out in the future and say, if I just get there and throw a lasso there and a rope and keep pulling yourself to that point out there in the future, say, if I can just get that or if I can just be that or do that, I'll be happy, I'll be contented.

And people, when they get to that point, it doesn't bring them the joy and contentment, so they throw it further out. And all they do, they're never satisfied with what they are, where they're at and what they have.

There's always some ship coming in because they heard a word from a preacher or they heard a word from their own flesh that says, you're going to be mightily used of God, you're going to be this, you're going to be that, and they're living for that.

And when it doesn't happen on time, live in total discontentment. Always living in the future. My word to them was, say, wake up and live, get a life. Now, listen to what God told Saul, your chosen vessel to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

God said, I'm going to use you mightily. God does give words like that. I heard that when I was eight years old. So Saul goes forth straightway preaching Christ in the synagogue that he's the son of God.

Saul increases the more in strength, confounds the Jews at Damascus. And after many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. God says, I'm going to call you to the Jews. Only the first time he gets to speak to the Jews, they want to kill him.

So he goes to Jerusalem. But the disciples were all afraid of him and believe not that he was a disciple. This is some start for a ministry where God says, I'm going to use you mightily. But you see, God's teaching Paul to be content one step at a time.

Where I am with what I have, where I am. I'm not going to worry about everything else. If God told me that's fine in his time, in his way, in the meantime, I'm going to rest in him. I'm going to live my life to the fullness of Jesus right here, right now.

So much for his call to reach the Jews and now he's rejected by his own brethren. But he's thinking in his heart, at least I have the Gentiles. He said, I'm going to win the Gentiles. But when Cornelius gets a word from the Lord, who does he call?

Peter. I wonder what went through Paul's mind. What a wonderful surrendered man he must have been. Because when he goes up later to Jerusalem, Peter stands up. Peter rose up and said unto them, men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

And that's the word God gave to Paul. He said, you're going to be the man who wins the Gentiles. Peter. Paul had to listen to all these reports coming out of the house of Cornelius how the Holy Ghost had fallen and that Christ had revealed himself now to the Gentiles.

He goes to Antioch finally to preach to the Gentiles later. And the Jews rejected Paul. So he said, Lord, I'm going to turn to the Gentiles. And many Gentiles were converted in Antioch. Great revival breaks out.

And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the women and the chief men and expelled Paul and Barnabas out of their coast. What kind of message was he preaching that made everybody so mad?

The cross. The surrender of self. So he goes to Iconium. Great multitudes of Jews and of Gentiles believed. See, Paul's saying, now God's keeping his word to me. It's a great revival. There it breaks out.

Once again, there was an assault made both of Gentiles and of the Jews and their rulers. So much for ministering to kings and their rulers used them despitely and stoned them. Here's a man who's called to minister to kings and rulers to Jews and Gentiles.

They end up cursing him and stoning him. But I read of no complaining. I read of no murmuring, no questioning, because I hear him instead say, I am content that God is leading me. I may not see now what he has shown me, what he has revealed to me.

I may not see it, but I'm going on because I have in me a contentment in Christ. My pursuit is not anything the world is pursuing. I'm pursuing Jesus. I can pursue him anytime, anywhere. I can grow here and now.

See, Paul's in no hurry. He has a promise he's holding to. God's going to use him, alright. But in the meantime, he's willing to speak to a little group of women in a prayer meeting along a river bank.

He'll speak to a sailor, he'll speak to a jailer. He'll go one-on-one, even though he has a worldwide commission. He says, I'm going to be faithful here. And you find Paul speaking to one here, leading one here, one here.

Small groups. When he does get a multitude, he loses them. He's not jealous of younger ministers who he taught, who pass him by now while he's in prison. They're outreaching the world, both Gentiles and Jews.

There's no envy because a surrendered man knows how to be abased as well as to abound. Paul said, godliness with contentment is great gain. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. Get a whole world starving.

You've got protection. Be content. Most of all because you have Jesus. You have Christ. I'm closing just a few months of it. You know what the world would say to Paul? Paul, you're at the end of your life now but you have no savings.

You don't have a chariot. You only have one change of clothes. You have no investments. And oh, but I have a life. I won Christ. You could say to Paul that Paul, the devil harasses you. You suffer more than anybody.

You go from one suffering to another suffering from shipwreck to snake bite to this and to that. And you have this great testimony of knowing Jesus and you suffer. The devil is always harassing you. You have constant pain like no one around you.

Now I said, oh, but I glory in my afflictions because when I'm weak, that's when I'm really strong. He said, I don't measure it the way the world measures it. But Paul, don't you know Apollos has the crowds?

He's eloquent. You minister mainly to small groups and your speech is contemptible. He said, none of that moves me because I'm having a revelation of the glory that awaits me. I'm not of this world. But Paul, what about God's promise to you?

You're going to be a witness to the kings. And all you did was stand before them in chains as a defendant. Where's the fulfillment of the promise God made to you? Paul would answer all, but God did keep his word because as a defendant, he gave me a pulpit I could have never had.

And he said, boy, did they get convicted. I preached Christ in fullness because I had the right as a defendant to say what I will. Nobody could stop me. I did reach kings. God was faithful. Not the way I thought he would do it.